


Musings on a Dawn

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, it's Fingon's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26618050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: A series of thoughts on the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on Tumblr

Findekáno _almost_ survives.

Gondolin’s army arrives and provides much-needed relief and almost-hope (because the song of this battle is a song of _almost_ , of _maybe if_ , of _just missed it_ ) and one of the first things that happens is that Ecthelion breaks ranks to join the High King’s honor guard. This was done without permission, without even _asking_. He went to Ondolindë for Laurëfindil. He would have stayed in Mithrim otherwise, for Findekáno.

He’s the only member of the honor guard to survive.

Gothmog and his Valaraukar attack at the same time as Ulfang and his sons. This was purposeful. Isolate the High King and the Lord of the Eastern Marches, who have been proven to save one another again and again and again. (The original battle plans involved _capture_ , not _death_ , because what better way to mark your victory than to publicly execute your new subjects’ greatest heroes in a grand display of your might and power? The original plans were not followed.)

Maitimo is saved by Bór and his sons.

The High King is not so lucky.

He’s cut off from his guard, separated by what is more or less a ring of fire. They die one by one. Maitimo sees, and senses, what’s going on, and gets onto his horse and takes off across the battlefield, hoping against hope he can make it in time. Ecthelion was wounded, but not killed, and manages to fight his way through the worst of the fire and the enemy guard. Findekáno, for his part, risks all in a last-ditch attempt to break free of the whips and the cords that bind him, and the fire beyond. Ecthelion _almost_ seizes his hand and pulls him out, but he’s caught by another whip and dragged back into the circle.

Turukáno is watching this, and gives his sword its name by cutting his way through a throng of orcs to try and reach his brother’s side. He manages to save Ecthelion. Maitimo’s horse Ilmarunda is killed before the pair of them can reach Gothmog.

Findekáno thinks, for a moment, that he will be simply taken alive. But then Gothmog looks at him and says “No, I think it’s your time to die,” and that is that. (He wanted the bounty that Morgoth had placed on the High King’s head after Maitimo was freed, and he wanted to brag that _he’d_ been the one to kill the damn elf, rather than let Mairon have him and break him a thousand different ways.)

Maitimo never makes it to what’s left of Findekáno’s corpse. His own guard finds him and drags him from the battlefield before he can kill himself trying. (They were intertwined with one another, in the final moments, making promises they couldn’t keep and clinging to the last burning embers of their bond. Findekáno later wonders if he’s committed some terrible crime by demanding his husband stay with him and harbor him and shelter him, but in the moment he was terrified of fire, terrified of dying, terrified of the lonely maybe-endless separation that loomed before them, and he wanted comfort.)

This is why it’s Ecthelion of the Fountain who finally drowns Gothmog.

It wasn’t luck, or ill chance, or a tragedy.

It was purposeful revenge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr.

Slipping from his _hröa_ is, surprisingly, the least painless part of dying.

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, he’s standing in the midst of the battlefield, more or less ignored as the Valaraukar trod what’s left of him into blood and ash; he is _raw_ , and _stinging_ , stripped bare of all that makes him _himself_ and thrust into a sharply-edged reality. The world as it truly is stands out stark against the dim shadows that were the vast majority of his perception, and he is surrounded by sparks that are _fëar_ , and -

\- there are eyes on him, and an impossibly bright pale light like a star too close to the earth that is at once behind countless feet of solid rock and immediately before him, pinning him in place.

He is _seen_ , and he is _known_ , the memory of dark hair spilling out over bare brown shoulders already fading into indecisive silver.

_“Come to me.”_

The voice is everywhere, emanating up from the dust and the stone, steeped in Discord and bending the whole of the Song thrumming through him like a heartbeat. For a moment, panic flares up through him like a cold knife, but it, too, fades beneath the impossible light. He tries to breathe, and coughs on nothing, rooted where he stands.

And then he hears the screaming.

The voice might as well have come from his own ghostly throat, he knows it so well. Whatever spell the fell voice had cast over him snaps like thread in a weak seam, and he tears himself loose from it to focus all of his fast-waning attention on that dreadful sound that surely must be cleaving the battlefield in two behind it.

There is a horse lying on its side, legs frozen in horrid, unnatural angles. A gash has parted flesh from bone all along its underbelly, and blood and viscera trail into the dry and thirsty earth. Behind it, in a dip in the earth, is an armored figure on its knees, scarlet cloak embroidered in gold following behind like a cloud. _This_ is the source of the screams, a shivering _elda_ crouching in the dirt, bracing with a right arm and clutching at its head and at braided hair the color of a sunset with a shaking left hand. A forgotten helmet lies a stone’s throw away.

There is something between them - a gleaming cord of copper and blue, ever-present in life and blazing brighter than ever in death - and with a shock he realizes that it is burning itself away, that like his half-forgotten _hröa_ it is shredding itself into ash, consuming all in its wake and leaving misery behind.

_Russo_ \- ! he thinks, and the thought falters and withers and dies before it can reach the shattered _elda_ before him. If he could weep, he would, but there are no tears to shed without eyes to weep from, and so he watches, dancing on a knife-edge. He can _feel_ the voice and the light and the invisible eyes seeking for him, and if he’s caught again there will be no well-timed agony to save him a final time.

_Let me say goodbye_ , he pleads, unsure of who might hear his prayer. In defiance of the jarring, discordant summons, there is a softer call, whispering to him on the west wind - _come home, cast off these cares, return, return!_ \- and this, above all else, is easy to answer.

_It isn’t safe to stay_ , he realizes, and once more he would be weeping. _I - remember me, find me again, or else let me find_ you _\- do not despair, beloved, above all shadows rides the Sun, remember, remember!_

By the time the screaming stops, he’s gone, sliding easily along pale and shadowed paths that no darkness can find.


End file.
